Yellowstone in Spring

Just before I moved out to Boise, we took a day trip to Yellowstone with some of our good friends in the ward. By Idaho standards, the weather was cooperative: the skies were clear, the sun was warm and the wind was only gusting at 35 mph. Not too shabby! Although we have been to Yellowstone dozens of times, the beautiful vistas and the hopes of seeing wolves and bears continue to draw us in. Another reason we really wanted to go was because Barry, the father of the family we went with, is a geology major and we wanted to look at all the geothermal sites with him. Catherine and I aren’t too enthralled by the geological marvel that is Yellowstone so it was our first time seeing many of these things.

Barry was totally cherishing these “travertine deposits” near Mammoth Hot Springs. Our retinas were torched! These pictures don’t do it justice, but the travertine was as white as snow and the noonday sun made it treacherous to look at.




Catherine and I at Mammoth Hot Springs. I’m not sure why it is called Mammoth Hot Springs. The name is kind of a misnomer; it leads you to believe that there is a warm swimming area or something. FYI- as far as I know, there isn’t. Pretty area though…





This is one of the spewing geysers at the Painted Pots Geyser Basin. There are dozens that are capable of throwing heated water into the air; they just aren’t predictable like Old Faithful is. We happened upon this one.



We saw the standard wildlife that makes Yellowstone their home. This buffalo calf couldn’t have been more than three days old! It would not leave its mother’s side. It had to be touching her at all times. It didn’t help, though, that bone-headed tourists were out of their cars taking pictures. I prayed that the mom buffalo would gore them, but I guess that wasn’t a righteous enough desire…




We stopped for lunch at this picnic area and a herd of 20+ elk wandered into the field. Here you can make out some of them behind us. There weren’t any impressive bulls, just fat cows and scrawny rags (I think they call them).




We saw this lone antelope. Not too exciting for us, but you might find it neat…




This was the wildlife moment of the day. We saw this enormous bald eagle scouting out fish in this tiny lake. Look at the size of that thing! Eventually, he took flight, hovered over the lake, and dove down for a meal! He misfired, but it was rad!
All in all, it was a pleasant trip. They say that the spring is a good time to go because the snow has melted in the valleys so you have a chance to see a lot of wildlife as they come down to feed. Although that is true, we discovered that many of the best sections of road are still closed because of snow.